According to the Ministry of the Interior, 121,000 people demonstrated in France on Wednesday May 1, on the occasion of International Workers’ Day. The CGT counted more than 210,000 demonstrators.
In Paris, the police headquarters counted 18,000 demonstrators, while the unions counted 50,000.
Tensions took place at the head of the demonstration procession. Shortly after the departure, at Place de la République, a “large pre-procession” of around 4,500 people including “several hundred” radicals was formed, a police source told Agence France-Presse. On Boulevard Beaumarchais, several shop windows and bus shelters were damaged and the police used tear gas. Other windows have been tagged.
Our journalist Pierre Bouvier was on site:
Calm then returned and the demonstration continued to progress towards the Place de la Nation. But new tensions arose after Place de la Bastille. A van was partially set on fire, as well as trash cans. Other bus shelters were damaged. Stones and mortars were thrown at the police who again used tear gas and intervened in the procession. At the end of the afternoon, the police headquarters reported 45 arrests and a total of “12 police officers and gendarmes injured, all in a relative emergency”.
Processions had previously set out throughout the territory. The Marseille demonstration brought together around 3,000 people, according to police, behind a banner proclaiming: “Mobilized for peace and social progress.” In Rennes, the demonstration attracted 1,400 demonstrators, according to the prefecture, while in Nantes there were between 4,000 and 5,000, noted an AFP journalist.
Violence broke out in the city center of Nantes during the demonstration which brought together 3,500 people according to the prefecture with damage to businesses and tear gas fire. In Lyon, the parade brought together 13,000 demonstrators according to the unions and 6,500 according to the prefecture. Twenty-two people were arrested at the end of the procession, according to the prefecture.
There were also between 4,000 (unions) and 1,850 (prefecture) in Bordeaux or between 3,000 and 8,000 in Toulouse. In Lille, the procession brought together between 2,100 (prefecture) and 4,000 people (CGT) and in Strasbourg between 900 and 3,000.
Glucksmann forced to leave the parade in Saint-Etienne
In Saint-Etienne, the head of the list of the Socialist Party and Place publique, Raphaël Glucksmann, was prevented from joining the procession after paint was thrown and invectives from a few dozen activists. The MEP denounced these attacks which are, according to him, “the result of months of hatred and slander cleverly orchestrated by the “rebellious” and others”.
These accusations were immediately rejected by the “rebels” who claimed not to have participated in the ousting of the socialist candidate. Especially since the Young Communists (JC) of Loire broadcast a photo on X of a banner with the inscription “Glucksmann get out” in order to claim this action.
“Raphaël Glucksmann, excuse yourself! », launched Jean-Luc Mélenchon on -May and a victim role for Glucksmann who takes the opportunity to (…) accuse [La France insoumise]”
“Not a disunity.”
On the union side, unity remained quite broad but, unlike 2023, where the eight main French unions (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, UNSA, Solidaires, FSU) marched together against pension reform, it there was no national inter-professional slogan.
The CGT, FSU and Solidaires, as well as youth organizations including the UNEF, the FAGE or the MNL (National High School Movement), had launched a joint appeal in particular “against austerity”, for employment and wages or peace again. The first French union, the CFDT, had for its part called for people to “join the processions organized throughout France, to demand a more ambitious and more protective Europe for workers”.
“We can be united and continue to make common demands without necessarily being all, always, all the time together in the front square. So it’s not a disunity, it’s another way of raising our demands,” said the number one of the CFDT, Marylise Léon, from Nancy.
